


the burn of bravery

by fortunati



Series: duality, or, where flame meets rock [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 08:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19169404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunati/pseuds/fortunati
Summary: In hindsight, he probably should have seen this coming.or, irah asks about his burns





	the burn of bravery

In hindsight, he probably should have seen this coming. Irah was a very smart girl, even if she didn't talk much, and was bound to notice and ask eventually. He just didn't think it would go the way it actually did.

"Mako?" Irah asked, setting her sketch pad down in her lap.

"Yeah?" he replied, not looking up from the file he was glancing over.

"Why is your arm stripey?"

Mako nearly dropped his papers.

"Why is my arm-  _ stripey?" _

Irah glanced away, nervous as she twisted her fingers together.

"It's stripey like Lin's face," she said, like fact, but in a hesitant voice.

Mako swallowed. There wasn't some traumatic backstory surrounding his arm. Well… maybe a little, except Bolin had just told him he loved him before he lightning bent at Kuvira's machine. Mostly, he was caught offguard by Irah calling it "stripey." Which, he guessed, looking at it now, wasn't  _ inaccurate _ . 

"Uh - I bent a lot of lightning one time. I bent too much lightning at one time," he told her in a gentle voice.  _ See, it's okay. _ "It took a while to heal, but now it's all better. The stripey parts are where it was hard to the skin to heal back all the way."

He held his arm out so she can get a better look, if she wanted. She sidled closer - she did a lot of sidling, and he wasn't going to lie and say he'd never done it as a kid - and reached for his arm, fingertips featherlight as she traced the edges of the scars.

"They look brave," she said reverently. Mako did not know what to say to that, her meaning perfectly clear to him even if he couldn't put it into any more words than Irah just did. 

"Oh," was what came out. And then Irah lifted her fingers and went back to her sketch pad like nothing had even happened, and Mako sat stone still in his seat staring at his scars like he'd never seen them.

_ They look brave _ .

Mako looked away.


End file.
